Getting Real With 3D Visualization

The general public's comfort with 3D environments, driven by the expansive online gaming culture and the recent push toward 3D entertainment, has definitely lit a fire under design tool vendors.

"If you look at games, there are massive amounts of information, but even a child can easily engage with it," Kaustuv DeBiswas, one of the co-founders of Sunglass, told us. His startup (subject of a previous blog) is readying a Web-based design service aimed at fostering collaboration around 3D product data. "The amount of information a user engages with in a game is far more than what a traditional CAD system allows you to do, and there's plenty to learn from that. One of the big things is real-time feedback."

DeBiswas fully expects many of those concepts around multi-player gaming, like real-time feedback and 3D visualization support for a cooperative group, to influence the development of his company.

"Sunglass aims to play a part in taking what was traditionally an individual desktop experience only for experts out into the public domain similar to what YouTube did for video -- that is, allowing anyone who has an idea about a product to express it, share it, and work with a cooperative," he said. "Design is not just about a single act in designing something, but also a medium in which we think. 3D will soon become the everyday way we think about things."

The Sunglass platform and API leverage the cloud to extend 3D design collaboration to non-designers and non-engineers via the Sunglass Stage.

Dassault Systemes is certainly taking that mission to heart. The CAD and PLM company has recast its efforts for PLM 2.0 around what it bills the 3D Experience, or the concept of looking at 3D data in a more comprehensive way. "We're not talking about sending more 3D information, but more information around 3D," said Garth Coleman, senior director of marketing for 3DVIA, Dassault's brand that encompasses a cloud-based community and a suite of 3D authoring tools.

Visualization capabilities have been around for a long time, but Coleman told us the technology wasn't evolved enough previously, and people weren't ready for it. "3D is out there and accepted… and there's a lot of convergence with a lot of the pieces that make it the right time and market to start to flow 3D data out to a broader audience."

A 3D model may provide a sense of how something looks, but Dassault's 3D Experience philosophy goes further, potentially presenting that model in an environment that might depict how you would service, sell, support, operate, or use a product through simulation.

"There's a difference between information and communication, and we're all about getting information across in a more meaningful and effective way," Coleman said. Products like 3DVIA Composer for creating product documentation, 3DVIA Shape for creating 3D content, and 3DVIA Scenes for creating design walkthroughs work in tandem with other Dassault products like SIMULIA simulation technology and CATIA 3D CAD. Together, the offerings enable engineering groups to create more realistic digital mockups of products while placing them within the context of a multidimensional experience, so R&D participants and potential users get something that transcends a simple visualization of how a potential design appears.

It's the ability to visualize highly realistic models in 3D along with the highly advanced collaboration capabilities that enables these smaller firms to gain an edge and not have to pour all the time and energy into building expensive prototypes. That's really at the heart of the technology's promise.

Indeed, Beth, we've learned in our work with MediaLab 3D Solutions that an enormous amount of money can be saved by opting for high-quality 3D models over building prototypes, scheduling shoots, etc. The inevitable product spec changes and tweaks are also far less painful when using 3D — it's a matter of tweaking the 3D file, not starting back at the very expensive "Square 1!"

Hi Beth, My company is Well Planned Web and we've interviewed many of MediaLab's clients, such as Whirlpool, Black & Decker, NetGear and Kohler to learn more about how 3D models and animation has benefitted them. This was all part of the Case Study process. Their engineers have been thrilled with the results — especially in the warranty and customer service arenas. I don't want to seem like I'm pitching things too much here :) — but happy to post links to those case studies if you'd like. Extremely compelling stats and results of using 3D models, animation, etc. Just let me know!

Beth, I love computer visualizations. So many different iterations can be tested to find the right one, and not have a huge scrap heap of discarded models. That is the strength of 3D visualization.

Infinite-Z's product is going to open new vistas for this, and I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on one (no pun intended).

However, there will always be physical mockups. At the very least, drivers will want to sit at the wheel. Pilots will want to climb into the cockpit. Just the act of walking around the real mockup makes the concept being viewed more real. Computer simulations suffer from the uncanny valley effect; mockups do not.

The way to take the strong points of 3D visualization and tie themt to phyiscal mockups will be the 3D printers we've been discussing this year. But for a full mockup of a vehicle, I see a future with large format printers.

TJ: I totally agree with your analysis of how things are evolving going forward with the marriage of stronger 3D visualization and 3D printing. I always think you are spot on with the notion that physical prototyping doesn't go away. Every engineering organization I've talked to that has moved forward with a virtual prototyping approach says the benefits are being able to pursue more design instances more quickly and get to an optiimzed set, which are further proved out in physical prototyping. Essentially saving the costly and time consuming physical prototypes for the good stuff.

Virtual Reality (VR) headsets are getting ready to explode onto the market and it appears all the heavy tech companies are trying to out-develop one another with better features than their competition. Fledgling start-up Vrvana has joined the fray.

A Tokyo company, Miraisens Inc., has unveiled a device that allows users to move virtual 3D objects around and "feel" them via a vibration sensor. The device has many applications within the gaming, medical, and 3D-printing industries.

While every company might have their own solution for PLM, Aras Innovator 10 intends to make PLM easier for all company sizes through its customization. The program is also not resource intensive, which allows it to be appropriated for any use. Some have even linked it to the Raspberry Pi.

solidThinking updated its Inspire program with a multitude of features to expedite the conception and prototype process. The latest version lets users blend design with engineering and manufacturing constraints to produce the cheapest, most efficient design before production.

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